But was that really a pip? A "pip" in corporate culture is typically also combined with a chat with HR and official documentation written by, for, and with HR.
Nothing about what they said indicated otherwise. I have every expectation that HR was at least notified. This feels like a no true Scotsman argument in the making. “PIPs are just the bad ones, everything else is just managerial guidance”.
It seems to fit the definition of a PIP. If you’ve defined that every PIP must be a bad faith one, and this is not one of them, it doesn’t stop it from being a PIP.
This was an official pip. No specific meeting with an HR person, but htey were involved. There was paperwork, formal list of goals/expectations, timeline, I had to agree. There was an evaluation, there was an end date.